Death penalty foes solicit pen pals for convicted killers

Yes, thanks to death penalty opponents, Richard Allen Davis has his own home page. On it, as I mentioned in my Sunday column, Davis displays “hand-painted wood hobby craft items,” which he made. He wonders if there’s anyone out there who wants to know who he really is, and “if for someone like myself, can one ever fall back in love with life again?” Davis invites people to write to him at San Quentin.

Davis also posts photos of himself. This courtroom shot is not one of them:

Who would bother putting up such a Web page? The Canadian Coalition Against the Death Penalty has set up pages for San Quentin Death Row inmates trolling for pen pals. The group seems to resent that journalists might look up Richard Allen Davis on its site, and urges us to look up other death-row inmates who may be innocent or victims of a racist justice system.

OK. I can do that.

Here’s Charles Ng. You may recall Ng, whom I wrote about here, and here’s the Chronicle story about his conviction for the murder of “two babies, three women and six men during a nine-month crime spree in the mid-1980s.” Ng writes:

fDuring my incarceration I enjoy such things as origami, spirituality,self-study, exercises, writing, reading
and drawing. I am a self-taughtartist who loves animals and strive to express artistically with an improvisational
approach in whatever medium available to me.

Convicted killer Kevin Cooper also has a place at ccadp.org. Cooper earned his way onto death row when he was convicted on first-degree murder charges for the 1983 slayings of chiropractors Peggy Ryen, Douglas Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and their son’s best friend, 11-year-old Christopher Hughes. The ccadp.org page asserts “Josh Ryen, sole survivor of the attack, has always maintained that three white or Hispanic men killed his family. Josh and his grandmother have supported Kevin Cooper’s defense team and question Kevin’s guilt. ” Wrong. Here is Josh Ryen’s statement to a federal court.

Scott Peterson writes that he appreciates the letters that come his way. And: “I wish I could respond to express my gratitude, and continue to correspond. However, people having sold my notes, and sometimes fabricating content, preclude me from doing so. It is an irritating, unfortunate situation.”

The first time I met Kevin Cooper I was 8 years old and he slit my throat. He hit me with a hatchet and put a hole in my skull. He stabbed me twice, which broke my ribs and collapsed one lung. I lived only because I stuck four fingers in my neck to slow the bleeding, but I was too weak to move. I laid there 11 hours looking at my mother who was right beside me.

most American media is more interested in looking at or hearing about the one or two high profile cases on our pages, in order to upset and inflame victim’s families at the expense of the hundreds of other prisoners for whom we have set up websites; many of whom are wrongly convicted, have issues in their cases, were juveniles at the time of the offense, are victims of endemic racism and or corruption in the judicial system etc. We invite journalists to look over our pages to see what horrifies human rights activists worldwide. To view some of these other cases, visit ccadp.or